| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: have since so far become the veriest commonplaces of criticism,
that one can hardly realize that, only ninety years ago, they
should have been regarded as dangerous paradoxes. They may be
summed up in the statement that all great religions are good in
their time and place; that, "as there is a soul of goodness in
things evil, so also there is a soul of truth in things
erroneous." According to Lessing, the successive phases of
religious belief constitute epochs in the mental evolution of the
human race. So that the crudest forms of theology, even
fetishism, now to all appearance so utterly revolting, and
polytheism, so completely inadequate, have once been the best,
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: "If you don't stop that directly, I'll have you arrested
for leaving your horses, and for brutal conduct."
The man, who had clearly been drinking, poured forth some abusive language,
but he left off knocking the horses about, and taking the reins,
got into his cart; meantime our friend had quietly taken a note-book
from his pocket, and looking at the name and address painted on the cart,
he wrote something down.
"What do you want with that?" growled the carter, as he cracked his whip
and was moving on. A nod and a grim smile was the only answer he got.
On returning to the cab our friend was joined by his companion,
who said laughingly, "I should have thought, Wright,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: life - and no very high matters at that - ships, freights,
business. In the instability of his emotions man resembles
deplorably a monkey. I was disgusted with my thoughts - and I
thought: Shall I be able to get a charter soon? Time's money. . .
. Will that Jacobus really put good business in my way? I must go
and see him in a day or two.
Don't imagine that I pursued these thoughts with any precision.
They pursued me rather: vague, shadowy, restless, shamefaced.
Theirs was a callous, abominable, almost revolting, pertinacity.
And it was the presence of that pertinacious ship-chandler which
had started them. He stood mournfully amongst our little band of
'Twixt Land & Sea |
